Inquisitor Lord Ghankus Dhar
Lord Dhar has served as the Proctor of the Scholariate at Arms for almost three decades, guiding his Chamber through a number of major incursions and saving the sector from several full-scale Warp breaches. He is said to have the ear of Lord Caidin himself, having served in the High Council of the Calixian Conclave and as a Master in Council for the Calixian Ordo Malleus. He is devoted to his Ordo, and has defeated several attempts by rivals to oust him from his position. Several of these rivals claimed that by serving as a Master in Council he was undermining the legitimacy of individual Inquisitors, who had no need to recognize any authority but that of the High Lords. In response, Dhar confronted the disaffected Inquisitors, defeated the ringleaders in battle, and expelled the remainder from the Calixis Sector. Dhar operates within a structure established centuries ago by the mutual consent of the majority of Ordo Malleus Inquisitors in the Calixis Sector, and has no intention of stepping down or dismantling a structure that has seen the Ordo through hundreds of turbulent years. Lord Dhar is a craggy, weather-beaten man with skin the texture of old leather. It is not known whether he has ever undergone rejuv treatment, but if he has, it was out of devotion to duty rather than vanity, for his face bears the lines and scars of many centuries of service. When called upon to take to the field, Lord Dhar wears a suit of mighty terminator armor, the surface of which resembles black marble shot through with crimson veins. It is said that when Lord Dhar dons his blank-faced marble helmet, he takes on the aspect of an immovable mountain or a titanic statue, standing unbowed as wave after wave of daemons crash against him. Lord Dhar carries a Daemon Hammer of great power and obscure pedigree. This weapon is at once both the sign of his status within the Ordo Malleus and a tool by which the infernal enemies of Mankind are banished. The weapon is called formally the “Hammer of Promeus”, but has also been called “Fiend-Hewer”, “Warp-Crusher”, and “Mason’s Hand”. When presiding over the Chamber of the Scholariate at Arms, Dhar keeps his hammer at his side. It has become symbolic of both a judge’s gavel and an executioner’s tool. It is said that this hammer was passed down to Lord Dhar, from generation after generation of predecessors, and that it predates by millennia the foundation of the Calixis Sector. Some have said that the weapon belonged to one of the very first Inquisitors, in particular one who was instrumental in laying the foundations of the Ordo Malleus. The truth about the hammer’s history, however, has been lost to time. Inquisitor Lord Dhar is unusual in two ways. First, he appears not to maintain a retinue of Acolytes, or if he does, they operate in secret and have never been detected. He does however command a household of administrators, serfs, and servitors, who are responsible for maintaining the holdings of the Scholariate at Arms. As the Inquisition operates not as a gestalt entity but an extended alliance of individuals and their servants, this arrangement allows the Scholariate at Arms and the other Chambers of the Calixian Malleus to endure from one generation to the next. Upon the death of the Proctor, the other Inquisitors elect one of their number to replace him, and this new Proctor inherits the household of the last. Second, following in the footsteps of all past Proctors of the Scholariate, he displays no outward signs of any factional allegiance. Within the Chamber of the Scholariate at Arms, none are permitted to discuss factional matters, so it is logical that the Proctor should keep his own loyalties to himself. Furthermore, the rules and traditions of the Scholariate at Arms forbid any of Dhar’s peers from enquiring into the matter of his factional leanings, and none who knew him before he ascended to Proctor appear to have been close enough to have guessed his mind. Dhar keeps most of his fellow Inquisitors at arm’s length, relying only on his own counsel on most matters. Lord Dhar personally saw through the purging of the House of Ios upon the world of Spectoris, which had become corrupted by the agents of Slaanesh.